Wrath of the Lich King held its sales record against subsequent high-profile contenders like Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, though when you include day-one sales of those two games across all platforms, they easily surpass Cataclysm's.

Cataclysm launched simultaneously in nine countries on December 7 and added Korea, regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau two days later. Blizzard said over 10,000 stores worldwide made the game available at midnight, and that some 15,000 players attended official launch events hosted by Blizzard and several of its retail partners around the globe.